April 23, 2006
AFP
KATHMANDU (AFP) - The US embassy ordered the families of its diplomats to leave crisis-hit Nepal as opposition leaders planned a huge rally after nearly three weeks of violent protests against the king.
Photo: Pro democracy protestors shout anti-king slogans during a day-time curfew in Kathmandu. The US embassy ordered the families of its diplomats to leave crisis-hit Nepal as opposition leaders planned a huge rally after nearly three weeks of violent protests against the king.(AFP/Devendra M Singh)
The royal government imposed a fresh daytime curfew but clashes continued on the outskirts of the capital Kathmandu Monday and six people died in an attack by Maoist rebels in the country's northeast.
Fifteen protesters were injured when police fired teargas and rubber bullets, and used batons against a group of some 2,000 protesters on the northeastern edge of the capital, a doctor said.
"We have treated around 15 injured who have all been beaten except for one injured from rubber bullets," said doctor Saroj Ojha running a clinic's mobile medical team.
The US embassy told the families and non-essential staff to leave because of concerns over dwindling supplies, shortages in medical expertise, protests and sometimes "violent measures" used by the regime to break them up.
In a statement it warned other American citizens "should also depart Nepal as soon as possible".
Leaders from a seven-party alliance will address a rally at seven points on the 27-kilometre (17-mile) ring road around the capital as senior opposition leaders vowed to take the protest to the royal palace.
"The democratic republic has reached up to the king's ring road and now it moves to the royal palace," protest leader Bamdev Gautam said at a rally on the northern outskirts of the city late Sunday.
But another senior member of his Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) said the "peaceful" protest would not head into the city, where soldiers were defending one of the king's palaces.
The parties said they planned 1,000 marches, mass meetings and effigy burnings Monday as a curtain raiser to the main protest throughout the Kathmandu Valley, the area encompassing the capital and home to 1.7 million people, according to reports.
King Gyanendra, in a bid to thwart new protests, set a new curfew in central Kathmandu from 11:00 am (0515 GMT) until 6:00 pm, state television said, warning anyone who violated the order could be shot on sight.
A United Nations human rights expert on Monday urged the government to halt the policy saying it could be a crime against humanity.
"The government is, in effect, instructing its forces to shoot innocent people, in complete disregard for the right to life," said Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, in Geneva.
Kathmandu was suffering shortages of fuel, food and other essential goods as piles of festering rubbish littered the streets.
Large sections of the ring road were covered with burnt tyres and roadblocks from nearly three weeks of daily protests as the king has struggled to quell the escalating calls for his removal.
Maoist rebels, meanwhile, launched simultaneous attacks with guns and grenades late Sunday on a telecoms tower and a police station at Chautara, 120 kilometres (75 miles) northeast of Kathmandu, that left five Maoists and a soldier dead, the army said.
"Five bodies of Maoists were recovered from the clash site Monday morning and one of our men also died," said an official from army headquarters on condition of anonymity.
King Gyanendra seized power in February 2005 because he said the government was corrupt and had failed to tackle the bloody Maoist insurgency, which has left more than 12,500 dead over the last decade.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, meanwhile, called Sunday for a rapid restoration of the multi-party system in Nepal to end the unrest gripping the kingdom, which he said has deeply troubled India.
Singh told reporters on a trip to Germany that King Gyanendra's decision to outlaw democratic political parties had led to the crisis, and added that the Indian government had urged the monarch in "several conversations" to back down.
At least 14 people have died and hundreds have been injured in the clashes between pro-democracy activists and the security forces during an upsurge of civil unrest that began on April 6.
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